Tomas Maier: Dreamweaver

Luxury knows no limits for Bottega Veneta's creative director

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Draped in nude crepe jersey inside Bottega Veneta's Milan headquarters, Carmen Kass takes a saucy spin on a woven wedge heel, flashes the mirror a beguiling smile, and stops marching abruptly in front of designer Tomas Maier. Eighteen hours before Maier's spring runway show for Bottega Veneta, his ruminative state won't be compromised, not even by a leggy supermodel who is flirting with herself. Fist firmly tucked under his chin and without moving a facial muscle, he deems the dress less than perfect. "Tighter here," he pronounces with German-laced Italian, remolding the model's waist with a pin. The change, barely perceptible, is handled swiftly, efficiently, as are the rest of the day's fittings and preshow proceedings, which are cut as sharply as Maier's own Black Forest-bred accent.

A calm, so foreign to fashion waters, follows this designer wherever he treads. Whether he's designing bikinis in sunny Florida — Maier's unlikely home base and the birthplace of his now growing Tomas Maier store chain — or gray Milan, where he buckles down with Bottega, Maier is all business. A spiffy tailored three-piece suit, which he designed himself, is now his preferred uniform, though the man's inherent style is better expressed by the extras: a purple silk pocket square, the tinted Persol goggle sunglasses (worn indoors), and those clunky but cool gray patent-leather Nikes that peek out from his fine wool pants.

"Often in fashion companies, there is tension and drama. There are too many personalities and divas," remarks Finnish stylist Tiina Laakkonen, a Chanel alum who has now worked with Maier for two seasons. "But here, nobody's nervous. Nobody's dramatic; nobody shouts. And," she adds, "it's always like that."

If the 50-year-old Maier is a consistent voice of reason among hysteria-prone designers, his products for Bottega Veneta are the ultimate understatement in a world of look-at-me luxury goods. With no logos, no unsightly hardware, no gimmicks, and certainly no gadgets, Bottega Veneta products do not whine for attention. Maier, who started at the 42-year-old Italian luxury-goods house in 2001 after working at Hermès, will not put up with a screamer.

Take the Cabat (from the French cabas, or shopping basket), one of the first bags he designed for Bottega Veneta. Made from four layers of woven napa leather, this open bag is entirely embellishment, branding, and bling free. For two days, its leather strands are lovingly woven together over a rectangular model by a little lady in a crisp brown lab coat at Bottega's factory in Vicenza, which is about two and a half hours from Milan by train. Every inch has been sized up scientifically, from the leather's color, texture, and strength, which receives a report card before being sliced up, to its thickness, between eight and nine millimeters, the magic number for the most buttery texture possible and the toughest resistance. The Cabat might not hail you a cab, but it will race the heart of someone more important: you, the wearer.

"I always like an object that is as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside," says Maier of its impeccable construction. "That's what luxury is all about. It's very personal. Nobody needs to know."

It took awhile for the Cabat to generate its cult following. "People were like, 'Who's going to spend 3,800 euros on a shopping bag?'" remembers Maier. "But people did. And they still are, because it's a beautiful object."

The bag, starting at $4,700 (or $78,000 if you fancy the large crocodile version, made from no fewer than 17 croc skins), is the feather in Maier's antitrend design cap. He is fundamentally opposed to the word trendy ("It's not part of my vocabulary," he says, insulted by the thought) and especially unimpressed by of-the-moment handbags.

"I don't like It bags, and we don't do It bags," he says firmly. "A bag doesn't become important because you put it in an ad campaign or on the arm of a celebrity or because it's the bag of the season and you say there's a waiting list. That's bullshit. It's just marketing. People always talk about these bags being unavailable, and it's total crap."

At Bottega, a style stays in the collection as long as there is demand for it. "A bag becomes important because women decide," says Maier. Without the maelstrom of one-season promotion, the bags are given their time to take root and become favorites. Each season, Maier tinkers with their design, perfecting invisible imperfections. They are not poisoned by overexposure, they do not go on sale, and they are never deemed out of style by their maker.

Vintage dealer Cameron Silver agrees. "I think the It-bag [label] is the kiss of death," he says, adding that he's noticed a recent rupture in the fashion philosophy of his savviest shoppers. "You get a hot commodity, and in six months you have a very tired bag that no one wants. I don't know a single woman right now who wants one."

The idea of creating either clothing or accessories that are cool now and destined for the back of the closet next year is "completely contrary to my process," declares Maier. "I tell a woman that something is good, and then six months later I tell her it's good again." Largely, this works because of Maier's progressive design process. Each ready-to-wear collection, which he first debuted on the runway in 2004, grows organically from the last. He isn't shocking the fashion world or making abrupt about-face style statements. He prefers to work out design problems and to perfect already existing items rather than reinvent the wheel. His latest obsession is pleats, which were created for a new spring/summer dress in weightless cotton poplin. "I'm really fond of that because it's not easy to do," he says of the irregular pattern that was pinned, pressed, and stitched down by hand. And then there's the built-in underwear he insisted on for his sheer dresses. "If you bought this dress and there was no undergarment, you'd be searching around for days for the right underwear and wondering what the solution was. That's not fair. If you design something, you need to design it all the way through."

This thoroughness makes a beguiling impression on luxury fanatics. L'Wren Scott, the lean and chic fashion designer and girlfriend of Mick Jagger whose lavender crocodile Bottega bag rarely strays from her wrist, says, "The product speaks for itself. You don't need any bells and whistles to sell it." The clothes, which are both insidery and luxurious enough for a style maker like her, hold particular appeal. "They are impeccably constructed," Scott says approvingly.

Backstage at Bottega's fashion show in Milan, makeup artist Pat McGrath checked in on her stuffed BV crocodile doctor's bag, which was shoved under one of the models' feet. "It really gets kicked around," she admits, "but these bags are beautiful, and they last forever."

That is owing to the expertise of Bottega's artisans, some of whom have been working in the factory for more than 40 years. The bags and clothes receive as much hand-holding as kindergartners and are just as spoiled. Maier, for example, would never scrimp on their handcrafted quality in order to create a secondary line. "I'm not going to give the same product at lower prices," he says, wincing. "What would my customer think of that?"

The beauty of Maier's clothing is its quiet simplicity, which often betrays the complicated, well-thought-out construction lurking beneath the surface. You may not see any of this because Maier loathes unnecessary statements. "I hate decorative details that have no purpose," he notes. "I love buckles, for example, but I hate it when I see a jacket covered with buckles that have snaps behind them and it's all fake."

And if some people don't appreciate the subtlety at work, well, that's fine with this designer. "I'm just trying to make some people who are looking for something particular happy," Maier says with a sigh, aware that even he cannot change the taste buds of the world's population. "I'm not a dictator and I'm not a judge. Let the people live."